In the manufacture of photographic film cartridges, a wound spool or scroll of film has been installed in a cartridge shell, after which the shell has been closed to a light-tight configuration to prevent exposure of the film prior to installation in a customer's camera. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,940,232 and 5,044,144 disclose apparatus for assembling such cartridges, each of which operates virtually entirely in a dark room. Other types of cartridges have been assembled by first making a preliminary assembly of the parts of the cartridge shell in a lighted room and then passing the preliminary assembly into a dark room for installation of the film and final closure of the cartridge. U.S. Pat. No. 3,364,552 discloses an apparatus for assembling such cartridges in which the preliminary assembly is moved on a conveyor in the lighted room to a first transfer wheel positioned in a light trap chamber. The first transfer wheel passes the assembly along a serpentine path within the chamber to a second transfer wheel which passes the assembly to a further conveyor in the dark room. Apparatus for transfer of exposed film cartridges from a lighted room to a dark room is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,135 in which the cartridges are fed by gravity along an enclosed chute from a lighted room to a dark room. Light is excluded from the dark room by a plurality of apertured shutters which control movement of the cartridges along the chute.
While apparatus of the types just described has achieved a considerable level of success, more recent cartridge designs, such as that shown in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,407 are to be completely assembled, without film, in a lighted room, after which the empty cartridge must be transferred to a dark room where a strip of film can be wound into the cartridge. Thus, a need has developed for an improved apparatus for rapidly and reliably moving such cartridges between lighted and darkened environments.